The 2015 BEA Galley & Signing Guide arrives this week! If you’re coming to BEA, the guide should help you navigate the show floor. And even if you’re not, it offers an overview of the forthcoming books that publishers are most excited in pushing. Register here now. Meanwhile, some announcements if you are coming to […]

In conjunction with a roundup of ten key fiction-in-translation titles I will feature in LJ 6/1/15, I was able to interview Ann Morgan, author of this month’s The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe (Liveright: Norton). Morgan’s book highlights both the pleasure of reading beyond our own language (from Umberto Eco’s Numero Zero in […]

Alarcón, Daniel (text) & Sheila Alvarado (illus.). City of Clowns. Riverhead. Nov. 2015. 144p. ISBN 9781594633331. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698168688. GRAPHIC NOVEL Fans (like me) of Alarcón, a New Yorker “20 Under 40” author whose Lost City Radio won the 2009 International Literature Award, will be intrigued to learn about this graphic-novel version of a […]

Caroli, Betty. Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President. S. & S. Nov. 2015. 464p. ISBN 9781439191224. $29.99; ebk. ISBN 9781439191248. BIOGRAPHY Some folks say that Lyndon Baines Johnson married Lady Bird for her money and treated her badly. But not Caroli, who here portrays Lady Bird as […]

With the launch of Literary Hub, the brainchild of Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of independent house Grove Atlantic, lovers of smart, upmarket reading finally got the website they’ve been waiting for: one that offers a daily dose of thought-sparking essays, excerpts from newly published titles, and a curated roundup of the best book talk […]

Baldacci, David. The Guilty. Grand Central. Nov. 2015. 432p. ISBN 9781455586424. $28; ebk. ISBN 9781455586417. lib. ebk. ISBN 9781455586394. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER Third in the Will Robie series, The Target was a No. 1 New York Times best seller. Now the deadly CIA assassin is back for another round of bullets, though who knows […]

Calhoun, Ada. St. Marks Is Dead : The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street. Norton. Nov. 2015. 400p. ISBN 9780393240382. $27.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE St. Mark’s Place, in lower Manhattan, occupies only three blocks, but in the intellectual life of the country it occupies a much grander space. Starting out as Colonial Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant’s pear […]

The bravery, luck, resourcefulness, and generosity of individuals facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances—personal, cultural, and natural—have long fascinated readers. Here are five titles to suggest to fans of the genre.

AAN is invaluable to African American studies’ scholars, as well as researchers in American history and political studies; the titles in the Colloquium collection could serve as excellent resources for upper-level undergraduate or graduate classes.

Newspaper columns from throughout Binchy’s tenure at The Irish Times; when it comes to books on SEALs, Courtley is the real deal; Leovy’s debut Ghettoside paints a compelling picture of life in south Los Angeles

Briggle, Adam. A Field Philosopher’s Guide to Fracking: How One Texas Town Stood Up to Big Oil and Gas. Liveright: Norton. Oct. 2015. 352p. ISBN 9781631490071. $26.95. SCIENCE/ENERGY Yes, philosophy professors can go activist, as Briggle did when he moved to Denton, TX, to teach at the University of North Texas. He quickly became an […]

Bareilles, Sara. Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song. S. & S. Oct. 2015. 208p. ISBN 9781476727776. $28. MEMOIR The five-time Grammy Award–nominated American singer-songwriter and musician talks about her craft in that same revelatory style that has made her a big name since her 2007 hit, “Love Song.” The life balance she […]

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem & Anna Waterhouse. Mycroft Holmes. Titan. Oct. 2015. 336p. ISBN 9781783291533. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781783291564. MYSTERY Basketball’s all-time leading scorer and a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player, among accomplishments on and off the court too numerous to mention, Abdul-Jabbar is also the author of eight books, including On the Shoulders of Giants: […]

Bernanke, Ben S. The Courage To Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath. Norton. Oct. 2015. 448p. ISBN 9780393247213. $35. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Not long after Bernanke’s 2006 appointment to the Federal Reserve, the housing industry collapsed, shoving the global economy into a tailspin. Here Bernanke recounts the Fed’s use of every resource […]

McCann, Colum. Thirteen Ways of Looking: A Novella and Three Stories. Random. Oct. 2015. 272p. ISBN 9780812996722. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780812996739. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. SHORT STORIES This is the first story collection in 12 years from McCann, whose multiple awards include the National Book Award (for Let the Great World Spin) and the International Dublin […]

Hotchner, A.E. Hemingway in Love: A Memoir. St. Martin’s. Oct. 2015. 176p. ISBN 9781250077486. $19.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466889484. CD/downloadable: Macmillan Audio. MEMOIR/LITERATURE Published in 1966, Papa Hemingway offers an affecting personal portrait of Hotchner’s close friend Ernest Hemingway. But there was more to the story. Apparently, in deference to Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary, and his […]